Sep 27 Kung Fu and Responsibility

At the time I was travelling over for private lessons once a month.  Having a day job meant that I had to take each day as holiday because of the journey to make it Sifu’s Kwoon.  Usually I leave my lessons buzzing but this time I was heart broken.  From the very first time Sifu had sent me flying across the Kwoon I’d instantly fallen in love with taiji and faithfully tried to practise everything I was taught.  Having no foreseeable way of attending extra lessons and desperately needing more regular tuition I was caught between the rock and proverbial hard place.  I was devastated.

A lesson that I’ll be eternally grateful to Sifu for teaching, is the importance of honesty in the student-teacher relationship.  Sifu hadn’t said what he had to be unkind he was simply being honest.  There was no blame or judgement on the current standard of my practice just a simple statement of fact with clear advice on what was required if I really wanted to progress.

Over the next couple of days I went through a lot of soul searching and I continually came to the same conclusion – I wanted to do taiji.  I started to calculate exactly how long it would take me to travel to and from my lessons figured out I needed roughly half a working day each week.  With a fairly meagre holiday allowance I just didn’t have enough time to make it over each week so I began to toy with the idea of shuffling around my hours during the rest of the week to give me enough time to accommodate my lessons but I now needed to pitch it to my boss.  

On the drive into work I mentally rehearsed how I was going to spin it so that I could convince him that allowing me to study taiji was a win-win situation for both of us.  Every time I ran the meeting through in my head my arguments were becoming less and less credible eventually to the point that I’d practically talked myself out of the deal before I’d even made the pitch.  By the time I’d arrived at work my ‘self-defeat’ had caused a mild depression to set in and I sat quietly at my desk.

“You’re quiet today Gav, what’s wrong?” asked my manager on his way back from the coffee machine.

“It’s that obvious?” I asked.

“Well you’ve been in nearly ten minutes and I’ve not had a single complaint about you and you look distinctly like you may actually do some work… something is clearly wrong!” he laughed.

I proceeded to explain that I desperately wanted to have more taiji lessons but just didn’t have the time – explaining the situation to him made my plight seem even more futile.

“Well you don’t want to have to keep booking days off do you?” he said optimistically that instantly raised my spirits.

“We’ve accommodated people going to university and on courses in the past so I’m sure that we’ll be able to work something out.  I’ll have a word the team and see what we can do!”

The next day he asked if I’d mind covering the early shift as everyone else on the team hated having to get up so early.  He added that if I took shorter lunch breaks I’d have more than enough time to do a ‘half day’ and fit my lessons in.  I was ecstatic and ran out to phone Sifu and secure my new regular Friday morning slot.

It’s very rare in life that you really know something’s true worth and the prospect of losing my taiji really required me to ‘up my game’ but listening to the ‘voices’ nearly caused what Sifu calls ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’.  Quite often the definitive points in our life bring us to a crossroad and it is our outlook and attitude that often makes the difference to which path we choose.  I’d like to say my ability to find a solution to my dilemma was found through calculated planning, but in truth in was being lucky enough to have a perceptive compassionate manager – a valuable lesson in being careful where you step on your journey up the mountain if ever there was one.

Sifu often speaks of the ‘responsibility’ of study and it’s a subject that I frequently raise in my own classes.   What I failed to appreciate until recently is that this ‘responsibility’ is something we take on of our own free will and not something that is thrust upon us.  I took on my taiji responsibility of my own accord and Sifu has never once told me that I ‘had’ to practice taiji every day he merely advised that in order to really grasp taiji I ‘needed’ to train daily.  The difference being the choice – if I want to become skilful I ‘need’ to train.  No pressure is given but neither is any quarter if I make excuses as to why I haven’t put in the necessary work to achieve my goals.  I have to be honest with Sifu as to what I want and he will be honest about the work I need to do to achieve it.   Having these very clear and honest boundaries in our relationship has seen my progress improve beyond my wildest dreams.

My trouble in becoming an aspiring sifu in my own right is that I often forget that I chose to take on this responsibility and was never asked let alone forced to bear it.  This has been a very recent epiphany (aided by Sifu of course) and one that I had after losing a few students,

“After the fantastic attendance on Mondays lesson I only had one student turn up last night!” I huffed to Sifu.

“I think you may be scaring them off Gavin.” said Sifu.

“How?”

“You can be…. well… quite ‘intense’!” he laughed.

“I’m only trying to make sure that they understand the true nature of taiji!”  I respond defensively.

“Exactly!  Why not give them the space to discover it for themselves?” he paused and smiled, “There’s a real danger of coming across as a ‘pushy’ salesman.  Remember taiji requires the skill of kung fu – ‘time AND effort’!” he said placing deliberate emphasis on the ‘AND’ part.

“Ah the magic ‘time’ component!” I conceded looking down at my feet with an embarrassed smile.

In the West we have grown to associate kung fu as the Chinese term for martial arts when a more accurate translation is actually ‘time and effort’.  But as always it’s never quite as simple a concept as it initially appears – the two need to be skilfully applied in appropriate measure.  For instance at the beginning when I was traveling over to Sifu once a month I was putting both time and effort into my training but in doing so without appropriate supervision my attempts at kung fu were actually hindering my progress in taiji.  When the time came for me to start teaching taiji I was putting a lot of effort into my classes but not giving the students enough time to acclimatise to the demands taiji will make of them.  I needed to allow them the space to take on the responsibility of studying my art, in the same manner as Sifu had done when sharing his with me.

Having aspirations of running a successful school the notion that my intensity was driving away students was weighing on my mind and I was quietly contemplating my teaching ‘style’ when Sifu continued the lesson,

“It’s not something to worry about – just be aware of it.  Like everything we do it is a continued learning experience.  New students are usually nervous enough when they walk into a strange class so the last thing they need is the instructor constantly in their face.  It’s very easy for enthusiasm and passion to become overwhelming and intimidating.  If you’re relaxed, calm and having fun so will your students and then they’ll keep coming back and then once they learn and accept the responsibility for their continued progress, you can give them hell!  I always go easy on the beginners and save it all up for my advanced students.” he laughed.

In martial arts circles we often talk about the ‘burden’ of responsibility and I used to think that ‘burden’ was the wrong word to use, but now I’m not so sure.  Anything worth studying requires both time and effort; it requires kung fu. A teacher never chooses the student; the student always seeks out the teacher.  Once found the teacher will then present the path upon which the student must travel and it is the responsibility of the student to decide whether or not it is a journey they wish to make.  Every path to be followed has a price and we all as individuals have to evaluate whether the cost is one that we are willing to pay.

Taking responsibility for our lives is sometimes a scary prospect for it requires courage and the acceptance that there will be a price to pay – but having control of our destiny is liberating, having no-one and no-thing to blame we also have nothing to hold us back.   It would have been very easy for me to be sitting here writing an article about how I could be studying taiji if I didn’t have a job that held me back – just as it would be easy for me to moan about how nobody wants to attend my classes.  The fact of the matter is that I could be writing about a lot of things, but thankfully I am able to write about and share things I love in life and all due to accepting the responsibility to study the art of kung fu!

Gavin King

Gavin King is a Shiatsu practitioner, writer and Martial Arts instructor from Essex in the United Kingdom. He runs a full time Martial Arts centre in Hockley, Essex teaching Tai Chi and Kung Fu. You can contact him via Facebook or Twitter!

More Posts - Website

Follow Me: